The Times And Changes Of Alice
by StalkersAreCreepy
Summary: Alice awakes as a vampire, having no recollection how she got there or why - you know. Alice has visions and explores her future until she meets Bella.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One – Nothing I can't do

My eyes flickered open, and I was immediately amazed and shocked at what I saw. Everything.

I could see everything.

I raised myself from the ground, and looked about my person, if that was what I was anymore, anyway. I was dressed all in black, but the clothes I wore were nothing more than rags, dirty and torn.

Then I felt the burn, the ripping, tearing, scorching fire. My throat was on fire. I instinctively sought water, liquid, anything to stop the horrendous blaze. Suddenly, my vision was cut off, and I was momentarily shocked, until I saw images before my eyes.

There was a row of stools, and a bar, but I saw nothing other than the stunning, striking, handsome young man that sat there.

I knew his name was Jasper Whitlock, that he was 20 years of age and that he had no idea that he was waiting for me.

I also knew that he was a vampire, and as much as that fact shocked me, I had no fear whatsoever, but a lure, an attraction, a pull towards this one person, the heart of existence.

He was tall with honey blond hair, and was muscular yet lean, and his eyes were an odd shade of burgundy, with thick lashes framing them.

Alarming me somewhat, the vision changed to a pair of bright, golden eyes. Then it flickered, and disappeared.

I blinked, disorientated by the sudden change in view, and found the motion uncomprehendingly pointless. I drew breath, for what I realised must be the first time since I had woken, yet was surprised yet again as the relief tied to this action did not come.

I looked around myself, realising that I didn't know who I was, where I was and what I was.

Behind me was a tall, thick wall of brick and stone that I'd been slumped against upon my awakening. I turned and reached out to touch it, expecting it to be hard and cold, but surprisingly it was remarkably soft, and not cold in the slightest.

I whirled in panic, wondering what had happened to me, at which point I caught the smell of something in the vast forest behind me, and the burn in my throat was realized again.

The movement I made turning round threw me off balance – did it take any time at all?

I inhaled my third breath, and smelt the odd fragrance again, and began to head into the forest opposite the wall, yet was overwhelmed again – surely I couldn't run this fast, walk this gracefully. I saw a deer, dancing through the trees and wondered again at the strangely…tangy smell emanating from the creature.

It was almost repulsive.

I was just staring in wonder at the foliage around me, when those same, gold eyes came into my vision again, only this time, they belonged to the body of a man.

His hair was only a shade or two lighter than his eyes, and he looked to be over 6 ft in height. The information granted with the image was that his name was Carlisle Cullen, and that he was a vampire, too.

I was astounded to know that he didn't drink the blood of humans, but the blood of animals, explaining the golden colour of his eyes.

The vision went away again, and my entire concentration was returned to the burn in my throat. I shut my eyes, and listened to try to hear a stream or a river anywhere.

I could not only see everything, I realised, I could _hear _everything, too, not to mention smell everything as well.

The brushing of the lighest wind against the tree-tops, the scurrying of small rodents and insects, and as I spun my hearing range out to the point where I was certain of my limits, I heard the sound of water running through a creek.

I breathed a sigh of relief, yet my sense of smell told me that there was something wrong.

The smell that went with the water, was foul, even worse than the tangy aroma of the venison.

Driven wild by the pain in my throat, I growled, and was disgusted and amazed by the low, guttural snarl that came from my lips.

I ran at an exhilarating speed into the midst of the forest, and stopped when I heard the heavy paws of a lion thudding in the dense foliage.

It was not nearly as repulsive a smell as the river or the deer, and without thought or reasoning, I tensed my body and shot toward the place the thuds were coming from, and the warm aroma of the beast.

I leapt at it, and, sinking my teeth into it's neck, began to drink from it.

When I had finished, I realised what I'd done.

I realised what I'd become.

I realised that one day I would join Carlisle's coven.

I realised that I was a vampire.

I ran, if you could call it running, it was more like flying, like being shot from a revolver, to the place where I'd heard the water before, the creek.

The water flowed clear, and as I approached it, I could see everything of myself in the reflective shimmer that was the surface.

My face was shocking, but by no means in a bad way. It was the most beautiful thing that I was sure I had ever seen, besides of course, from Jasper Whitlock, the man sitting in the bar, who turned out to be the same species, the same creature as I was.

Vampire.

_Vampire_.

I looked back to my face, and with horror realised that my eyes were a vivid crimson colour, almost glowing and the most prominent feature on this face, _my _face.

I gazed at my reflection, and on noting the way that my clothes seemed to be even more ripped than before, I assumed that the lion must have unleashed the power of his strength and claws against me, but apparently to no avail whatsoever.

I looked skyward, and saw the dull, grey clouds above me that gave me no assistance at all in helping me know the time of day, the month, or the season. I felt no cold, yet no heat.

I thought back to touching the stone wall against which I'd been lying, and the expected chill not being there. My body temperature must be low then, and as I also remembered the soft texture of the wall, I assumed that I must be as solid as granite, as marble, too.

I thought back to my eyes again, and my thoughts were returned to Carlisle Cullen, and his coven of vampires. He had gold eyes, did he not?

Then if I had just fed from an animal, not a human, it only made sense for me to have gold eyes as well.

The burn in my throat was returning again, distracting me from my train of thought, and I knew that I must not have had enough from the lion, and was rather disgusted with myself. Nevertheless, I headed for the forest and when I entered, became still.

The stillness momentarily shocked me, for I had never been able to stay this still before, and wondered how long I could stay like this.

I spanned out my senses and, finding nothing, I shot through the forest in search of new prey. After a time, the forest began to thin and a dim light came through the trees. I broke through the trees and towering in the distance I saw a mountain range, though I was unaware of my geographical positioning.

I stilled again and this time when I spanned out my senses, there was much more of the warm aroma like the lion's and I crouched, and prepared myself for the hunt.

I did this another two times before I was finally satisfied with the amount I'd had. The burn was not gone, but at least I could now concentrate on other things than it.

I took this time to actually look upwards, and around me, and for some reason I could not comprehend, the feeling of being free without boundaries seemed an entirely new concept to me. I tried to think back to my life before I woke up, but as I searched through my memory, I came up blank.

I couldn't remember a single detail from being human. How odd.

My mind was yet again distracted by a realisation that I had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, nothing to wear, nothing, no one, nowhere in the entire world. I thought that over again.

Sleep.

Would I need to sleep? I'd been hunting at top speed for quite a time, yet I felt no sense of being tired or needing rest of any kind. Well, maybe I didn't need to sleep.

One of the perks of being a vampire, I told myself, with mock enthusiasm, though I was starting to feel a little excited at the prospect of not having anything I couldn't do.

Nothing I can't do.

The phrase was very true. What with this speed and strength, there were no limits in the physical world. My brain seemed to be endlessly large, so I guess that I didn't really have any limits in the intellectual world either, really. Although I obviously couldn't remember my life before, I somehow remembered that in my experience, being as beautiful as I was, or merely pretty, could get you to a lot of places.

What did I know of anything other than the experience of what I'd been doing for what couldn't be more than a few hours? Could I go out in public? Was there a rule which deemed me unable to do that in this life?

I had never seen any amazingly beautiful people as far as I could recall, then again, I could hardly recall anything from before.

But that was my last life.

_This _is my life now.

As a vampire.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two – Diamonds, Visions and A Reflection

I looked at myself again – I clearly needed to come by clothing. And for clothing I clearly needed money. I came to the decision that I would need to get a job of sorts, but wasn't entirely sure that I would be able to get one very easily.

I considered what sorts of jobs I would be able to do without being too conspicuous, for I assumed as I had thought vampires to be a myth before I became one that the existence of us was meant to be kept a secret.

The burn in my throat took this moment to project itself into my conscious thoughts, and even though it must have been only five or six hours since I had last fed, I knew that I would have to hunt again soon.

As I rose from the floor that I had seated myself on, I was surprised yet again by the fluency of the movement and the fact that I wasn't stiff at all, for I had been sitting still on the hard ground for more than four hours.

I ran back towards the clearing by the mountain range, but when I got there this time, there was a smell unlike any another I'd smelt the last time I'd come here, earlier this day. It was easily the most delicious thing that I had encountered in this short existence.

As I took the position that I already knew was the one that I started to hunt in, another of the visions that I had been having came before my eyes.

It was of a man, maybe in his late twenties, or early thirties walking through a sparse forest, more of a collection of trees.

For a moment or two, I wondered why I saw the future of this man, until I saw myself running so fast it was a little blurred, even to my eyes, with a savage, hungry expression on my face. I saw him look terrified momentarily, before I leapt at him, and attacked his neck and devour his blood.

I knew that he was the delicious smell that I could sense now, and from the clear focus of the vision, knew that it was inevitable if I hunted within a twenty mile radius of here, and the fire in my throat couldn't last that long, even if it would only take a few minutes to run that.

As the vision cleared, I bunched my muscles in preparation, and sprang forward at the lightning speed that exhilarated me, toward the delicious smell. As I crossed the clearing to the scene that I had looked upon just minutes, if not seconds before, I came in sight of the man. His face was holding the expression that I already knew would be there.

I leapt at him, and savagely attacked his neck, trying to end this as quickly as possible for him.

The blood that ran down my throat was unbelievably sweet and I was keen for more and more. When the poor man was drained and dead, I surveyed his broken body; distraught at the deed I had just done, blinded by the fierce need to quench the fire that overpowered all sense of right and wrong.

I swore to myself never to drink the blood of a human again, and hoped that I would be able to remember that promise the next time I felt the need to quench the unending thirst that I seemed to have.

Keen to keep the thirst at bay so as not to lose control like that again, I came across a deer, and decided that it would have to do. I felt full, saturated even, and was confident that this would keep me content for another ten hours or so.

I made my way to a boulder, and on taking a seat on it, again being shocked by how fragile it felt underneath me. Wanting to see how strong I really was, I pressed my fingers into it, and to my amazement, it started to crumble beneath them. I scooped some of the strangely soft element into my hand and brought my hand into a fist around it.

I opened my hand and was astonished to find that my palm was full of merely dust – I must be strong then, very strong. I giggled, for what I realised had to be the first time ever in this body, and the beautiful sound that came from my lips gave me instant gratification, and immediately reminded me that my face was beautiful, too.

I wanted to find that river again, so that I could have another chance to look at my new face. I kept my eyes open this time, in the hope to see it through the trees while also listening intently to try and hear it.

I decided that smell might also help to find it and I breathed in deeply.

I found the creek that I'd looked in before, and flew to it in my sudden yearning to look at my face again.

As I arrived at the river, I let out a breath that I hadn't realised I was holding, clearly, I reminded myself with another exquisite giggle, because I hadn't needed to take it in the first place.

My face was exactly how I remembered, perfectly recalled like a snapshot in my brain, it was beautiful and even though I spent quite a time searching for a flaw, I couldn't find one.

This time I looked at it more thoroughly.

My eyes were still a vivid crimson, but as I tried to look away from them, I noticed that my eyelashes were thick and long, my eyes themselves a perfect oval shape.

My nose was perfectly straight; decidedly small and definitely button like, but it suited my face perfectly.

My skin was the palest thing that I'd ever seen; similarly pallid to snow, or clouds, but it was also flawless, without a blemish or imperfection anywhere on its surface. Decidedly the piece of my face that I adored most was my lips.

They were a perfect rosy colour, one that harmonized with my face entirely, despite the white shade of my skin. My bottom lip was perfectly formed and my top lip had the perfect dip exactly in the centre. Together, they formed not quite rosebud lips, but more of a pucker, which I decided I liked more than rosebud anyway.

The wind blew lightly, making me aware of my hair for the first time, fanning my face. It was a deep black, and was sticking out in all directions as the wind blew.

After five minutes of attempting fruitlessly to straighten it, I decided that the messy look suited me and returned to staring at my face.

I noticed the sky start to darken after a time, and rising from my cross-legged form, I saw in my reflection that I was tiny.

Minute.

I couldn't have been five foot even. I shrugged it off, still glowing in the intense gratification of my face.

The night and darkness did nothing to affect my seemingly flawless vision, just changed the colours around.

The tree trunks were black now, with leaves that were deep purple. I looked with fascination at the grass, which I noticed was now a much darker shade of green, and the solitary boulder that I could see from half a mile away across the clearing was pitch black.

I wondered what I would do on these endless days and nights, how was I going to get clothes and money and most importantly, what my name was.

I tried to stretch my mind back to being human, but yet again found that I couldn't find anything. I tried to remember anything, a face, a name, a person, a job, a parent, anything.

As I concentrated on my name, one came through my seemingly impenetrable barrier.

Alice.

Alice.

_Alice._

My name was Alice.

I liked it, it had a…quality to it somehow, and I think it suited me, well me _now_, anyway. Names reminded me of Japer Whitlock, I wonder what my surname was?

I thought hard, but nothing came to me, so I assumed it was something that I wouldn't ever know. Hmm…

Alice _Whitlock_…

Jasper and Alice Whitlock…

Not now, I told myself, one day, but not know. I had a strange yearning for this man that I'd never met, and as much as that should have troubled me, it really didn't.

It was at that moment that I had another vision.

Carlisle Cullen was in some sort of white suit, and was standing in a large room, full of, sort of…carts, with wheels on, but on top of them there seemed to be something holding up the lumps covered in white sheets.

He noticed something going on outside so Carlisle went to the door and looked surprised to see a mangled woman on a stretcher being carried towards him. I then realised that the lumps were dead humans, and wondered at how strong Carlisle's self-control must be like to work at a hospital.

The woman on the stretcher was in an awful state, I think she was dead, in fact, I was almost certain she was dead, covered in her own blood and her legs and arms bent at odd angles that a human could surely not be in.

Carlisle came out and helped the people carry her in, for they did not have the immeasurable strength that we had. He took her in and bid the humans goodbye, and turned around to the woman.

Her heart was still beating.

He took a deep breath, walked over to the door, locking it and returned to the woman. She made barely a sound when his teeth bit into the flesh of her neck. All that came from her lips was the tiniest gasp that only could have been heard by ears like ours.

When he pulled away he had such a look of deep compassion in his eyes that they almost were burning.

The vision abruptly came to and end, and I was thrown back into reality, in a slight state of shock.

How had Carlisle managed to pull back after biting this woman?

I remembered his control as I thought back to his job occupation. A doctor? Why would a vampire have any want to be a human doctor?

He must be just as compassionate as the look in his eyes had shown to do such a thing for humans.

I replayed my older vision in my head, of Carlisle, the first one I'd had of him, to see if he had others with him. Now that I knew he drank from animals, and that fact didn't shock me quite as much to distract me anymore, I remembered seeing someone in the background.

It was a man, but he looked decidedly younger that Carlisle, for his face definitely had more boyish features.

He was a vampire, too.

I knew this instantly from his eyes, which were also the gold colour of Carlisle's.

His hair was messy, and a strange bronze colour, his nose and features, like Carlisle's and mine, were perfectly set and straight. He had high cheekbones, full lips, a strong jaw line, and was tall at what I reckoned to be over 6ft.

Despite his height he was surprisingly slender, yet still somehow muscular. Strange. Maybe that's how all male vampires were; come to think of it Carlisle and Jasper were quite muscular as well, though Jasper had more of a build than the one with the bronze hair.

What was his name?

Edward.

His name was Edward Cullen, and he was changed at the age of 17, in Chicago in 1918 by Carlisle when he was dying of the Spanish Influenza.

He had a gift, just like me, which I was slight put out to find that it was that he could read minds. Surely that was better than being able to see the future?

_Oh well, seeing the future is pretty good, too._

I thought to myself, thinking that it would be annoying to have voices talking in your head the whole time. I least I had a power, most vampires didn't, Carlisle doesn't have one.

My mind returned to the vision I had just had, it was going to happen soon, I could tell that. It couldn't be in longer than a few days, at the most.

I was very happy for Carlisle, for he had been alone for centuries and he had only recently found Edward, three years back.

Carlisle had been very anxious about how to go about transforming Edward, as it was his first experience, but it looked as if he'd found out the proper method after that, knowing his compassion, probably to cause as little pain as possible.

Pain? I rethought that, something that my brilliant mind was not used to doing.

I now somehow knew that in the transformation, one went through frightful pain, like a burning fire, but I recalled no pain, no burning, other than the one that was beginning to return to my throat.

Strange… Oh well, I guess I was really lucky not to have experienced it, and felt dreadfully sorry for this poor woman who was soon to go through it.

I began to have another one of the visions, and slumped against the bolder I had wandered over to while thinking of Carlisle.

Her name was Esme.

She was lying on her back on a stretcher, her eyes wide in alarm, staring at Carlisle who was standing over her.

She had caramel-colored hair; she also had a heart-shaped face with dimples, which made her look very endearing. Her figure was slender, but rounded and soft, giving her more of a motherly look.

Her perfect little face contained eyes the same vivid crimson colour as mine, so I came to the conclusion that it must have something to do with only just becoming a vampire. As she looked at Carlisle, the same spark of recognition I'd noticed in Carlisle's eyes when she'd been carried in appeared in her own, along with a look of…want?

She began to talk of a burn in her throat, a fire, and I winced as I remembered the feeling of the all consming thirst.

When her eyes opened I noticed a massive amount of relief sweep through Carlisle's eyes, and I wondered why, because he had changed Edward before her, and he knew the process of the change.

Maybe Esme meant more to Carlisle than I had had originally realised.

The vision ended there.

So Carlisle was not alone, like I had originally thought. He lived with another man, and now a woman, who might soon be a wife.

I wonder if I _tried _to see the future of someone, then I could? It's worth a try…

Esme and Carlisle…together…

A picture covered my vision, and I was pleased that I was able to see it after searching. It was a wedding. A very small wedding, in fact. There was a beautiful arch that was woven with all sorts of flowers, it the colours of white, light pink, a creamy colour, all of them pale, harmonising well.

I had an overwhelming urge to do something about the wedding, plan it, choose dresses, arrange hair and do make-up. As I considered doing this, a bubble of excitement crept up my throat, but shot right back down again because I reminded myself that of course I couldn't.

Esme was being led, up the aisle strangely, by Edward, but it made sense to me when I thought that her father definitely wouldn't be there to do that, and Edward was the only other person there apart from Carlisle, Esme and the minister.

I then found out that Edward was posing as Esme's brother at that point in time, so it only made sense in they eyes of the minister.

After leading Esme up the aisle, he stood between them, opposite the minister holding two beautiful rings. One of them was a simple gold band with an expensive look to it, and the other held a beautiful, sparkling diamond, with the band encrusted with them too.

I didn't have to be the genius I admittedly was to figure out which was whose.

Esme's dress was gorgeous, and I craved it at once, thinking about the awful state of the rags I was in.

Carlisle was wearing a tuxedo, and Edward was wearing a simple suit with a tie.

Esme looked even more stunning than she had the first time I had seen her, though I had to admit that I could have done a better job on her hair, even though it did look nice.

It felt like I was sitting watching the wedding and no one knew of my presence. All three of them were smiling, Esme's and Carlisle's, with joy, though Edward's looked slightly, proud?

He must be pleased that Carlisle had finally found someone after all the time he had spent alone.

I'm sure if someone were to see me now, I would be wearing a giant grin, and once they had got over the fact that I was wearing just rags, if they did, they may be concerned for my mental health.

As Carlisle lifted Esme up slowly and like a human, I could see his irate expression at having to put on a human charade in front of the minister. He began to walk with Esme in his arms down the isle, though he knew he was perfectly capable to sprint, for the weight did nothing to slow him down.

I had gotten so into it that I was a little disorientated as the vision finished.

It had reminded me that I really needed proper clothes, and that somehow I needed to get money to buy them.

I sighed as my thirst began to return – it had only been five or six hours since night had fallen and I'd last hunted – and began to head back into the forest, glad of the fact that it would work out for Carlisle and Esme.

X x X

The sun began to break through the clouds as I was finishing my hunt. The sun didn't come out at all yesterday, and I hoped that it was just chance and not the general weather here because I liked the sun.

As I returned to my familiar bolder, now in odd shapes and twists as a result of the experiment I had done on it earlier, the sun broke through the clouds and I scuttled into it to see if it would warm my freezing skin and gasped in shock as I looked at my arms.

As I looked at the rays of weak light on my arms, I was not only being warmed up a little.

I was _glittering_.

_Sparkling._

I looked like my skin was covered in _diamonds_ everywhere the rays touched.

The sun burst further through the clouds, and my whole body was covered in the shining, shimmering mass of glitter.

Hang on a minute…weren't vampires meant to melt in the sun? Huh, I guess that was a myth, then. Pretty good thing that it was a myth, too, because otherwise I would have been a little puddle by now. What other myths are there about vampires?

A stake through my heart?

Well, supposing that stakes are made of wood and I can crush a boulder, I'm assuming that's also a myth. I can understand where the myth of vampires melting came from, what with us not being able to go out in the sun and all that…but a stake? Maybe just something to make humans believe that they had a chance against our superior strength and speed… And I guess that garlic is the same kind of thing, because I really doubt that of all things, garlic would penetrate our defence. I wondered how I knew this, but let it go, as I was

Okay…

…So I am a vampire…

…I _sparkle_ in the sunlight…

…I don't drink human blood I drink animal blood…

…I don't sleep…

…I don't eat…

…I'm amazingly fast and strong…

…I'm incredibly beautiful…

…I can see the future…

…and my name is Alice.

Okay, so now I have nine lines about who and what I am. That's everything about me in the entire world.

Well, I guess it's a start…


	3. Chapter 3

_I wonder if this terrible thirst will ever become less? _I thought as I traipsed back into the f orest for another round of hunting, not five hours after my last one. If it didn't, I thought I was going to tire of this life pretty quickly. I wonder how Carlisle does it? He works as a doctor, and shifts must be longer that five or six hours, and the whole time he has to resist the smell. How ever does he do it?

I didn't even think when I attacked that human man a few days ago. It must get less bad over time. It was a little better than when I first became a vampire, even though it was marginally. I'd had to feed every five hours at a stretch, but now it was more comfortable to go that long.

But still, it was only a week ago, so it mustn't take decades… Maybe decades to reach _his _level of perfection, but what's the point of all that effort for just one lifetime? Why not just avoid humans, and enjoy being so powerful without harming or interfering with them?

_I wonder how long our lifetime will be? _I considered this thought for a moment or two, but came up short. I didn't ever seem to tire, or become weak as long as I fed… but I must be aging, mustn't I? What if I didn't age?

What if I stayed like this forever? What if I didn't have to die? If only I could see the past, as well as the future, I'd be able to tell how old Carlisle was. I looked into Carlisle's future once again, attempting to see his age, or anything about his transformation.

As I concentrated on Carlisle and information about him, a vision flickered into place.

Carlisle was sitting in a large room, probably a study of some kind. The west wall was solely used for one, gigantic bookcase, and the opposing wall was made entirely of glass. Every house that Carlisle and Esme would own in the next hundred years would have the same glass sheets on the east side, I knew that now.

The two walls not covered by the glass or the bookcase were covered in pictures, pictures of many colours and variety, pictures of different format and texture, just covering the walls. One was of four godly looking men, one of which I realised with a jolt was actually Carlisle.

Another was of a grimy looking city, with buildings close together and grimy looking. The caption under it read:

_London_

_1665_

1665? Why would Carlisle have a picture of London in 1665? He couldn't have been living then, could he? That was…two hundred and fifty six years ago! For some reason I knew that at this point in time it was 1921. I was shocked by the speed of which my mind was able to calculate this sum, yet not totally surprised, because everything else seemed to move so fast in this life, why not my brain, too?

I looked to see if there was a caption on the colourful painting of Carlisle and the three other godly men, and there was.

It said something in Latin, my brain told me, though I had never seen or heard this strange language before in my short existence. The date on it said:

_1700_

_Seventeen hundred?_

Ok, so Carlisle _was _that old…wow…so vampires never died, unless they did die, but had a really long life span, never got tired, were beautiful, strong and fast? Was there any downside to our seemingly endless lives…or existences actually, you could hardly call them lives.

So our only vice was having to feed quite often, and I was still assuming that the need to feed grew less and less frequent as the years passed by, at least I was hoping it did, otherwise an eternity of living would get very annoying if I had to feed every six hours.

And it didn't look like, well unless Carlisle was minus 233 when he was changed, I'm guessing that he hasn't aged one tiny bit. He didn't look a day over 23, which he wasn't.

So he was 23. It still alarmed me that I knew this from a small vision.

How _did_ I suddenly know all of this when I just thought about it in a vision or the vision gave me what I wanted?

Why couldn't I do that with _my_ past? I mean ,technically, I could only see the future, but when I'd wanted to see Carlisle's past, my vision gave it right to me. I guess there is actually no evidence of my existence, _anywhere. _

It would be so much easier to work things out. For instance, I have no idea what happened to me, why I was against that immensely long, wide wall when I woke up, who changed me or anything at all. I didn't even know how old I was…did I?

So I am mature enough not to be a child, I know that. So I must be over at least 16 or 17, despite my height, but I didn't look young enough to be the age my small height suggested. I thought back to how I had remembered my name, and to see if anything more would come through the barrier it had come through.

Family? A sister? No. A grandparent? No. My mother? No. Ok, so I wasn't going to get anything done by trying to remember my family. So my age… I'll concentrate on my age really carefully…

Nineteen. Could I be nineteen? I was incredibly small, but as I'd thought before, I looked too mature to be a child, and too mature to be still growing as well. So, I was nineteen. It was a new piece of information to add to my ever-growing pile.

I now had at least eleven pieces of information; opposed to the nine I'd had earlier today, which was a small improvement.

My vision ended, as did my train of thought, and I unnecessarily blinked another time, disorientated after such concentration on the pictures in the background of the vision. Seeing Carlisle at his house, though, had made me think of another think that I needed: a home. I didn't need anything comfortable, for my being so much like a rock, pretty much everything I touched or sat on seemed like a soft surface.

So maybe not a house, house, but somewhere I could go back to in between my hunts and do something at. The clearing that I had been stationed at the last few days was not exactly somewhere where no one would ever come, as the unfortunate man who had come walking here had made clear to me.

So maybe a cave? I obviously couldn't buy an actual house, for I had no money at all, so a cave would have to do.

Where would one be most likely to find a cave? In the mountains probably, though I'd have to go somewhere obscure so that no one would find me there. I remembered the mountain range that I'd seen before, and decided that it would be where I would go.

Another of those bubbles of excitement I'd felt before crept up my throat at the thought of being able to decorate the cave, and I had an urge to squeal. I began to think of all the things I could do in the cave and what sorts of plants I could use to make it look nice, and as soon as that thought crept into my head, I couldn't hold back the excited squeals that came from my mouth as I began to jump up and down, flapping my hands.

I shot off at top speed in the direction of the mountain range I'd remembered from before, the exhilaration from the run only making me more excited than before. I propelled forward, taking longer and longer strides, becoming keener and keener to get to my destination as I reminded myself that I could shaped the rock as I wanted, so I could probably furnish the cave, too.

As I went up the mountain side, I had to keep reminding myself to be careful not to be seen shooting up the edge of a mountain from a distance, for I was sure it would give humans a shock, even if they couldn't identify exactly _what _I was.

There seemed to be a crevice at a section of the mountain that would surely be dangerous for any human to attempt to go. I headed up that way, hoping to find some form of abandoned call channelled into the cliff side from constant wind, or maybe an old river, but none such things came up.

As I was about to give up hope and search a different place of the mountain, a small hole in a dried up river bed's path was brought to my attention. A turned back a ran towards it, looking down through it.

I was thrilled to find that it went down into a sort of hollowed out cave, I assumed that the water that was long gone had done it. I widened the entrance a little a dropped myself through it, surprising myself by landing nimbly, wondering if I would ever get used to the fact that I was indestructible and graceful now.

I looked around once I had landed, and was elated to see that it was very spacious with not a too high ceiling, but it was higher than me by a few inches.

I smiled hugely and began to squeal again.

X x X

_Four hours later_

X x X

I was still grinning.

My wonderful _house _was now decked out with a full set of every type of stone furniture you could imagine, all my size. I had three couches, all on different walls, each one with a different colour of woven bracken on, but all three complementing each other fabulously.

I had been a little confused at first how to put two pieces of rock together, but I had gotten the hang of it after a couple of goes, and had also found plenty of bracken on the sheltered side of the hill, and had woven it together with some long grass I'd found and fused it into the stone. I'd done this three times with three different colours of bracken I'd found, of course I had to have _some _differences in colouration and decoration in my _house_.

The trick with the rock was to just thwack it together really hard and kind of mould around the massive crack it made.

I had a small table and I had a big table.

The small table was made of a darker type of stone I'd found, but proved harder to put pieces together, so I decided to stick to the other stone in future. My big table was relatively long, fairly wide and was the centrepiece of my cave, even though it didn't take up a whole load of space. I had also made a box sort of thing, but it didn't have a lid. It was more of a crate, though I didn't own anything to put in it, though I hoped that soon, I would.

I'd put that in the corner of my room, and after a bit of shaping it with my hands, the wall was the perfect shape to fit my box in, and I had put it into it's place with a contented giggle and another squeal.

I made a bed as well, not because I needed it, but because I thought that it fitted the room, and also because I needed something to put into the far corner. I didn't make it have any posts or separate pieces, it would have been too complicated. I just got a lump of rectangular rock, rounded the edges a little and made a little crease to signify where the mattress would be of a normal bed.

I knew that I didn't need it, but I thought that the attention to detail was fun, so I weaved little pillows as well, both in the green bracken that I'd found while making the couches.

I hadn't realised that all that time I had gone by because I'd been having so much fun, so when I began to feel a little thirsty again and jumped up out of my little hole, a was quite shocked to see that it was already getting more cloudy and that the sun was already starting to retreat to the west.

_Will there be any animals around on a mountain? _

I wondered as I stood outside my cave entrance, wondering which direction to go in. I closed my eyes another time and spanned out my senses as I was so used to doing now, only after a few days. I couldn't really smell much, only a few faint aromas but they seemed to be coming from somewhere farther away, so I assumed that they were down the mountain.

As I ran, I wondered yet again how long it would be until I could be in any range of humans without having to attack them.

I knew it was possible, with Carlisle as my example, I just had no idea how long it would take. I had no idea how long it had taken Carlisle to perfect his skills, for he'd had over 250 years to do so, which meant that it could take that long, somewhere in the middle or any time between that.

It wasn't exactly a useful time frame for reference to, so I decided to focus on the other vampires in his new family.

Edward had been a vampire for three years now, but that was all the information that I held on him.

What about Esme?

She had shown no need to attack the minister at the wedding that I had seen, unless I hadn't seen it, but still, she hadn't. I wonder if I could tell how far in the future after her change that would be? I could start at finding when her change was to take place, and then I could work forward from there.

I replayed the vision of her being brought to the morgue in my mind, but no date came to mind. I decided to search the future again for Esme, but more recent future and details.

As soon as I thought of her straight after her transformation, a vision covered my eyes.

Esme was sitting in a chair in a grand room with Carlisle sitting opposite her, on a couch. Her eyes weren't as glowing red as they were before, but they were still a fairly bright colour, so she must not have been a vampire more than five or six days at this point. I searched for a time, or a date of this happening, and finally, I got what I was looking for.

Esme is going to be changed on the 14th August 1921.

Her transformation will last three days until 17th August at nightfall.

I knew then that the day of which I was having a vision of was the 24th August. I wasn't far off, because I said five or six days after her transformation, and this was seven.

The vision abruptly flickered and brought me back to the present day. I searched for anything close to the marriage, and was caught up in another vision that swept over my sight.

Esme was standing by a full-length mirror that I immediately envied, in the dress that I had seen her wearing at the wedding, talking to Edward.

"Do you think I'll be able to do it, Edward?" she said in quite a hollow voice, and I was worried that she was talking about getting married, but then I realised that the worry was something quite different.

"Of course you will, Esme, we've done plenty of tests haven't we? They all went perfectly fine, did they not?" he replied in a calming tone. I wondered why Carlisle wasn't there, then I realised that Esme was wearing her wedding dress and that Carlisle couldn't see it.

"Ok. I'm fine. I'll be calm. I'm fine." She repeated over to herself more than to Edward.

"Esme, you're worrying. Sometimes, I think you forget I can read your thoughts. You won't attack the minister. You are completely safe. He won't find it odd that your eyes are amber. He won't be suspicious as to why we are the only three people there. He _will _turn up, I _will_ remember to catch your bouquet even though a bridesmaid is meant to do that," he chuckled slightly at that, "and I don't mind about walking you up the isle, and it won't look odd because I'm posing as your brother, remember? Did I cover everything?"

She gave a weak laugh and nodded while Edward smiled at her. I remembered my mission to find out dates, and found out that it was half an hour before the wedding ceremony would begin. The date was 27th September 1922.

That would mean that Esme had been a vampire for one year and one month. Her eyes were a strange amber colour, not the red that I had, nor the gold that both Carlisle and Edward had, but a strange mix of both, but more gold than they were red.

I understood what Edward meant by tests, and assumed that as Esme had successfully completed them, it meant that it was just safe for her to be around humans now.

When Edward led her out of the door whispering encouragements into her ear, I felt my respect for this man grow. He was alone, though Carlisle and Esme had found each other now, and that must make him feel a little uncomfortable.

Even so, he wasn't dwelling on that at all, and was going out of his way to help them on their day, what with leading Esme up the isle, being the ring bearer, being the maid of honour, best man, bridesmaids and bridegrooms all at the same time and being really sweet to Esme and encouraging her as well as having trust in her.

As usual, though I'd have thought I'd be used to it by now, I was disorientated when the vision ended.

If it was 1921 _this _year, what season was it now? The vision was fairly clear of Esme's change, so I guess that means that it's fairly soon.

What was the weather like now? I couldn't really tell the temperature, but the sun had come out a few times, but I wasn't sure how many because I had been in my cave all day.

Then I remembered what I had originally set out to do when I had left my cave: _Hunt_

So I knew that I would take me at least on year to be able to be around humans without having to attack, even though I would still have a certain difficulty a month or so after that. Carlisle seemed to be immune to the presence of humans, and Edward seemed a little reluctant to be around them, but not as much as Esme. Maybe this was because he was older than her… so if restraint grew with time, maybe I wouldn't have to feed so much?

I hope so.


End file.
